With High Guard in Mgt 2nd ed, fighters don't appear to be scaling all that well with some noted exceptions.

Armor between tl12-15 pretty much negates most of the base list weapons with the exception of missiles and Mining Lasers. (High Tech list does have some more options.)

Firm points also don't scale well with High Guard as the light fighters 1 firm point in base list needs to be a missile rack, the medium fighter ends up with barbette or two missile racks and the Heavy fighter ends up with most likely a barbette weapon and a missile rack.

Might be an idea to update small craft firm points by having sub 35t having 2 firmpoints / 35t-70t have 3 firm points and 70+ having 4 firm points.

HG2e does have the interesting feature that it tries to be broadly compatible with T5.

Trouble is the vast majority of old timers still see HG 80 as the gold standard - despite its considerable flaws.

I agree that the whole Imperial fleet needs a redesign in light of the new rules - m9 should be the standard for every TL15 ship, so rather than just reproduce S:9 ships they should have been redesigned in light of the new standards.

Mongoose keeps things generic for the masses. Notice though how easy the design rules are for gamers to redesign old ships and build new ships to their specs. Get building those killer app fleets!

On this subject, we could use a larger assortment of fighters starting with what was in the 1e books and filling in the blanks. A Space Superiority Fighter to deal with those strike fighters and bombers as part of a defense screen would be pleasurable.

So 10 Dt fighters can mount a barbette that would make a 100 Dt ship proud, and a 70 Dt fighter could mount TWO barbettes?

Fighters are quite deadly enough, they do not need more weapons.

The 5t Barbette would make the 10t fighter a supreme glass cannon if you could get the parts to mod down to fit, but a barbette on any of the larger light fighters would give them a chance versus other fighters and armored ships. ( Especially in the face of Armor 15 hulls.)

The two Barbette heavy fighter would be finally viable versus going for medium fighter.

As to the lighter Ships, fighters firm points have a number of restrictions such as range restriction and prohibits range modification.

Mongoose keeps things generic for the masses. Notice though how easy the design rules are for gamers to redesign old ships and build new ships to their specs. Get building those killer app fleets!

On this subject, we could use a larger assortment of fighters starting with what was in the 1e books and filling in the blanks. A Space Superiority Fighter to deal with those strike fighters and bombers as part of a defense screen would be pleasurable.

I saw that the HG Light fighter had 3.65 tons of cargo and turned it into more useful space:
Light Fighter Mk. II - 7Gs, armor 12, sensors +0, Pulse Laser (Acc, Hi Yield), cargo 2.3 tons; all for the low low price of MCr 9.99.
(IMO, should make it an 8-ton fighter)
Another 10-ton fighter at TL 14 has 9Gs and 14 armor.

Totally forgot that effect is added to the damage roll, which can bump pulse lasers back up to threatening levels.

Pulse lasers can be serious threats, especially when three of them built with the Very High Yield tech advantage are placed in a triple turret. Turret damage jumps from the standard TL single turret's range of 2-12 to the triple turret's range of 10-16 (i.e. 2D+4 plus VHY effects). Then, as you pointed out, Effect is added to the damage roll. Suddenly, a tiny Beowulf-class free trader is consistently punching through the armor of an 75000-ton Atlantic-class heavy cruiser. As for what it'll do to the average unarmored corsair or destroyer escort...

Ouch.

Edit: Caveat to the above..this thread is really about fighters and small craft are limited to either single turrets or a barbette. Given that, a barbette is preferable where ever possible. But on a 100+ dton ship, triple turrets with High Technology pulse lasers rock.

Last edited by SSWarlock on Wed Jul 05, 2017 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

. . .
If you actually intend to fight warships, rather than just have them as campaign background, it's better to design your own ships.
. . .

I see this as a key consideration about a lot of these conversations about the fleet combat rules. Unless we're playing a war game along the lines of Trillion Credit Squadron, what matters isn't that ship combat capabilities are maximized, it's that any combat adversaries for player characters are appropriate to the adventure, whether that means they run away when they face the player characters, the player characters prepare for boarding with thoughts of whether to bribe the officials or pay the fine, or prepare for a tough fight.

Last edited by steve98052 on Sun Jul 16, 2017 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.